Strong Validation and Accreditation for Shasta College.

Shasta College faculty, administrators, and staff got a strong validation of their work product in
January when the Accrediting Commission for the Community and Junior Colleges of the
Western Association of Schools and Colleges granted the college another seven years of formal
accreditation.

In an unusually laudatory report, sparked by a visit from a 12 member review team at the
college in Oct. 2017, the commission praised the college for the quality of its work in the areas
of academic quality, financial management, institutional effectiveness, student learning
programs, support services, and in the area of technological, human, and physical resource
management.

The 19 member commission came to their decision at their semi-annual three-day meeting
held in Sacramento in Dec 2017. At that meeting, the commission reviewed 33 community
colleges up for re-accreditation located in California, Hawaii, and Guam. As it turned out, Shasta
College ended up getting one of the most glowing reports of all the colleges evaluated by the
commission in this cycle.

“It was very gratifying to see the work we do every day to support our students acknowledged
by the commission“, said Library Services Director Will Breitbach, who served as the college’s
liaison to the accreditation commission.

Breitbach said the successful re-accreditation of SC involved thousands of hours of work by
the college’s 40 member accreditation team, including countless meetings, along with numerous
obligatory rewrites of the all-important college self-evaluation report, which was delivered to the
commission prior to the teams October visit.

In the October visit the evaluators met with faculty, administrators, community college board
members, and students. They also toured facilities, inspected the financial records of the
college, probed the college’s governance, and looked into graduation and transfer rates. The
commission members also sat in on many classes, getting a first and look at the college’s
instruction.

In the re-accreditation report that was sent to Shasta College President Joe Wyse, commission
members praised the college for its hospitality and noted the SC team “ was highly organized”.

They also praised SC for its “creative and innovative” education programs.
Breitbach noted the commission accredited SC for the longest period available, seven years,
and that they praised the college for the quality of its work in 16 different areas.The report had
very little criticism of any of Shasta’s programs and services, but they did call for some
improvement in few areas.

“It’s typical when an accreditation team visits a community college campus for them to look for
some areas where the college needs to improve. We appreciate this input from the commission
and we are taking steps to improve in the areas suggested” said Breitbach.

The high remarks the college received in 2018 report by the commission was especially sweet,
according to many involved in the accreditation process, in light of evaluations made by the the
accreditation commission 6 years ago.

In 2012 the commission placed SC, along with 75 other community colleges in California, on
probationary status. At that time the commission complained about governance issues at SC, along with high staff turnover at the administrative level. Criticism of these things, however, was
noticeably absent from the 2018 report.

According to Breitbach the commission’s latest glowing report was sparked by all the hard work
done in the trenches by instructors, administrators, and staff. “ The outcome here is a reflection
of their work,” he said.

The college’s next evaluation will be in October 2021 where the college will be required to
submit a Mid-Term report, followed by a full re-evaluation in 2024.